CIRC 2020 Competition Information

Notice Regarding COVID-19

The COVID-19 outbreak is having a significant impact on large events and gatherings, and will continue to do so for some time. We will be watching our government health agencies for advice, and recommend you do the same.

Please read our statement here

Overview

Welcome to the 2020 Canadian International Rover Challenge! We are pleased to offer our fourth annual summer competition in the badlands of Alberta. This unique and exciting landscape is an ideal environment for university space and robotics teams to showcase their rovers. Our newest array of tasks will test rovers in unique and exciting ways. This event is great for both teams and the public to enjoy. Our collaborative event center gives your team a spot to work on your rover, and to engage with teams from around the world.

This year, Disaster has struck the Martian settlement! By completing a series of scientific and technical tasks, your rover can contain this catastrophe. Sign up now!

Event Date

August 7-10, 2020

Location

Drumheller, Alberta, Canada

Thanks to the continued support of our 2020 Title Sponsor Protocase, CIRC Central will continue to operate out of the Badlands Community Facility in downtown Drumheller.

Rules and Regulations

• Competition Rules
• Autonomy Guidelines
• Rover Safety Guidelines

Tasks

• Competition Tasks

General Information

• Register Your Team
• Resources for Teams
• Volunteering Information
• Event News
• Supporters and Sponsors

Apparel

CIRC 2020 T-shirts will available for order through this website. Shirts ordered by attendees will be available for pickup at the event.

An announcement will be made when these items are made available.

Changes Since CIRC 2019

See Also: 2020 Competition Rules

Based on feedback and what we’ve learned from the 2019 competition, we’ve made a number of changes again this year:

• We’ve clarified that rovers must be able to operate in the rain, and we don’t promise any accommodations due to weather. It is impossible to adjust scheduling around weather as the competition grows, and providing alternative tasks cannot be made fair from a scoring perspective.
• We’ve brought forward our safety reporting deadlines and clarified that you can request a partial evaluation at any time. The penalty for being over the mass limit has been reduced to align with the bonus for being under mass. A hard limit of 70kg still applies.
• We’re introducing the first cooperative task this year, and so that we can mitigate communications interference we have added additional rules regarding configurability of rover communication infrastructure. Having multiple teams competing at once allows us to extend the task length, so we’ve added rulings on changing out batteries mid-task with an intervention.
• Our livestream is expanding this year to cover all of our tasks. Expect your team to be filmed and streamed while at CIRC Central, in the field at tasks, and in the operations trailers. We have reserved additional channels of the 5GHz Wi-Fi spectrum to accommodate this expansion.